The academy awards results are out and this has proved to be one of the better years for the academy in terms of decision making unlike previous years.

The academy awards results are out and this has proved to be one of the better years for the academy in terms of decision making as far as the best films and the major acting awards are concerned ( although Leonardo DiCaprio fans would beg to disagree). But this has not always been the case in the history of the academy and they have indeed made horrible decisions at times which have only made movie fans scratch their heads. Here we take a look at some of the greatest movies that have failed to receive the Oscars from their respective years.

Citizen Kane: Citizen Kane has been widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made in American film history. It was ranked no. 1 on two separate lists of AFI’s 100 greatest movies. But even though nominated it failed to receive the best picture award that year and lost to how green was my valley. Legends have it that the academy didn’t select citizen Kane as the winner owing to a warning issued by William Randolph Hearst that he would not allow any film to be advertised in his newspapers if citizen Kane took the honors. Hearst was a media tycoon at the time and was one of the wealthiest men in USA.

Saving Private Ryan: The film scooped a heap of awards at the 1998 ceremony, but failed to pick up best picture. It is one of Spielberg’s greatest directorial venture and a movie that changes the whole base of the battle field genre movies. It lost the best picture award to Shakespeare in love, a well polished, likeable movie but certainly not in the league of Saving Private Ryan.

Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption: Both these movies are extraordinary in their own rights. Both these movies are considered as two of the greatest movies in American film history and last but not the least both these movies failed to get the best picture award in 1994. Now we know that only one of them could have won the award, but what are the chances of both of them losing the award to Forrest Gump!! This was probably the worst decision ever made by the academy, you have two of the best movies ever made and you need to decide who should be the winner among them. The academy’s answer….. The third movie.

Taxi Driver: This is another one of Martin Scorsese’s classic movie that was ignored by the academy when it came to acknowledging the fact that this was the best movie that was made in that particular year. Taxi driver lost its best picture award to the feel good underdog story of Rocky. Now Rocky is a good movie and all, but when it comes to being best of 1976 it’s not even as good as network. Taxi driver is an all time classic movie which was brilliantly directed, boasted of Robert DeNiro’s performance of a life time and is regarded as one of the most culturally, historically and aesthetically significant movies in the history of American film industry.

Goodfellas: One of the greatest crime genre films ever made, this is another Martin Scorsese’s movies that was not given the kind of appreciation that it deserved. Wildly regarded as culturally significant and is preserved in the national library of congress. Goodfellas lost the best picture award to dancing with the wolves, a movie which in the long term nobody seems to remember.

Now these are not the only great movies that haven’t won the Oscars, in fact these are the most obvious ones. We can also make a case for movies like Vertigo, The Wizard Of Oz, The Sixth Sense, Brokeback Mountain etc. the point is not that the movies are not good enough; the fact is that the academy doesn’t always makes the right decision.